


Balconies

by tatooedlaura



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Ficlet, X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 17:28:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8219219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Motel balconies and dark skies ...





	

It was too quiet for 2am. She was used to at least a small amount of traffic noise or drunken neighbors sliding along the wall outside her apartment, attempting to find their own front doors. Then again, if she had actually been home, she would have heard these things but instead, she was sitting on the rickety balcony attached to her second floor motel room, debating the alarming hush around her.

The only light burning in the area glowed with neon red and white, announcing the monotonous ‘vacancy’ of every rattle-trap abode Mulder chose for them. Luckily, it was on the other side of the building so Scully’s view of the sky was fairly uninhibited by the diffused distraction.

She’d counted only two shooting stars in her interim in her plastic deck chair. She’d been hoping for more but realized she didn’t have the wishes to use them properly if there’d been anymore coming her way. The first star had been a wish to keep everyone she knew safe, to keep them healthy and happy and at her side forever and ever, amen.

The second had been the only other thing her mind churned about, that which woke her up, kept her awake, drove her from the overly soft, overly warm bed to the cool of the inky blackness outside. She wished she’d been able to figure out the case in time. She’d had Mulder and his crackpot ideas at her disposal. She’d had technology and science and a brain trust which included the long-distance Gunmen and the forever connected Danny as well as Skinner’s pull and even Kersh’s resources but in the end, all she’d ended up with was a line of plastic-wrapped, signed for, stitched up children and tears that wouldn’t come.

It was at this very moment, this very second in the universe, this exact sting of reality, that made her wonder, with all her heart and being, why she hadn’t become anything, and she meant anything, else in life but an FBI agent. She could have been an ice cream truck driver, a glass-blower, a candle-maker, a mailman; a job that required her to come home after a hard day’s work and have absolutely nothing to weigh on her mind but what was for dinner and if she needed to do laundry.  
By now her feet were up on the metal rail, bare toes pointed in the direction of Orion and eyes lingering 45 degrees off the horizon, searching not for another falling star but the peace she knew was out there, somewhere, waiting for her with its soothing embrace.

The sliding glass door of the next room opened and the room’s occupant silently moved a chair beside her, only separated by his own balcony railing. Settling in, he mirrored her foot position before slipping his hand through the spaced spindles to reach her. Tapping her pinkie lightly, she turned her hand over and he gracefully fit his fingers in place between hers, “do you know the story of Samantha and the lightning bugs?”

Not feeling any compulsion to smile, she gave Mulder’s hand a squeeze, continuing her study of the universe beyond her toes, “no but I think I’d like to hear it.”


End file.
